Review: "The Oracle Year: A Novel", by Charles Soule, 2018

The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"The Oracle Year: A Novel", by Charles Soule, 2018

Charles Soule's debut novel, released in 2018, is witty and fast-paced about a man who wakes up one morning and can predict the future. Will Dando posts his predictions online as the Oracle to protect his identity. The revelations cause social unrest, geopolitical fighting, and chaos in general. All of which garnered some powerful enemies looking to control, or even kill, Will Dando.

The book, at times, read and felt like a series of comic book volumes, which I suppose I should not be so surprised given the author's previous body of work is in comics. The story got off the ground pretty quickly and, just as quickly, got mired with details of characters with no apparent function of how they would fit into the plotting. If you are patient enough to get past the halfway point, the payoff is worth it. All the players start fitting into roles that make sense for the plot.

About 1/3 through, I wanted to put the book down and mark it "DNF" (did not finish), but I'm glad I stuck it through the middle slump. I understand why this book is currently being adapted to a television series; it has all the hallmarks of what makes each chapter and cliffhanger episode. Quite similar to how Flash Forward by Sawyer was adapted to a television series. If there is another installment in this series, I will probably pick it up, and I would definitely tune in for the show as long as it doesn't get butchered like Flash Forward.

I give this book 3.25 stars out of 5.

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Fear the Sky (Fear Saga #1), by Stephen Moss, 2014

Fear the Sky (Fear Saga #1), by Stephen Moss, 2014

Riveting, gripping and just absolutely brilliant!

Easily classifiable as an action and thriller story, this book is definitely hard science fiction at heart. And what a fantastic job the author does and hitting all the genre points.

The story starts with a slowness that is crafted to lull you into a false sense security and hints at a larger impending doom looming in the sky and the invasion headed to Earth. Although there are quite a bit of members, the cast of characters is slowly introduced;  along with their brief backstory that helps make them memorable when they appear later in the book.

The book is a bit long and could have easily been two separate novels. The first half of the book spends a lot of time building a cat-and-mouse spy-style thriller and ending it with awesome fight sequences and close quarter hand-to-hand combats.

The second half of the book seems to have a shift of characters and a new focus. While the storyline is not quite as tight as the first half of the book, it does fit congruously to the overall story arc of the book as ties off some of the loose ends.

My favorite characters:

Lana Wilson (female alien robot, total-bitch princess from alien world)
Ayala (female Mossad intelligence/counter-intelligence agent)
Shaheem (male alien robot, turns into a double agent)
John Hunt (male alien robot, double agent)
Neal (human scientist)
Lori West (human scientist)

I would have rated the book five (5) stars, but I feel some portions of the second half of the book falters a bit.

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5 out of 5 stars) - I really really liked it.



Book Description by Author:

In eleven years time, a million members of an alien race will arrive at Earth. Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships’ huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space.

These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out.

Their technology is vastly superior to ours, and they know they cannot possibly lose the coming conflict. But they, like us, have found no answer to the destructive force of the atom, and they have no intention of facing the onslaught of our primitive nuclear arsenal, or the devastation it would wreak on the planet they crave.

So they have flung out an advanced party in front of them, hidden within one of the countless asteroids randomly roaming the void.

They do not want us, they want our planet. Their Agents are arriving.

Steel World (Undying Mercenaries #1), by B.V. Larson, 2013

Steel World (Undying Mercenaries #1), by B.V. Larson, 2013

Steel World is a military Sci-Fi book with even pacing with the action scenes and enough intrigue in the story that made the read quite fast and over before I knew it.

Recruit McGill, our hero, enlists in humanity's mercenary legion. His first campaign involved defending the mineral-rich planet called Cancri-9, better known as Steel World.  He dies, he gets revived, he dies again, gets revived again, and so on. But along the way he improves his skills and knowledge of the universe ruled by the Galactics.

The book was enjoyable for what it is; a straight-forward military sci-fi action story. There were no plot-twists.  The characters are fairly flat, and our hero doesn't go through any major character development.

Exploring the alien technologies and alien cultures, which were present throughout the book, would have made this a more interesting book. We only get hints of culture of the seal-like aliens and small nuggets information on the inner workings of the Galactics.

All in all, it felt like a mish-mosh of Scalzi's Old Man's War, Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the Emily Blunt/Tom Cruise movie Edge of Tomorrow, and Card's Ender's Game. Steel World held my attention all the way through, but I didn't find it to be particularly outstanding.

My rating: ★★★☆☆ (3 out of 5 stars) - I liked it.

"Damocles" by SG Redling, 2013

"Damocles" by SG Redling, 2013

This tale about first contact with an alien species and is told from the perspective of the two individuals involved with the "first contact" event on planet Didet. One is Meg Dupris, a human female linguist who is on a deep space mission to discover new, alien worlds populated by species similar to humans. The other main character is, Loul Pell, a male from the "discovered species" who is helping the linguist learn to communicate his species.

I have been noted to be a sucker for a good first contact story, and while my preferred first contact is aliens coming to Earth, there have been some great books about Earthlings going to different places for the first time, and Damocles is a surprisingly great entry in this subgenre.

The plot is simple, elegant, and just works. Meg is a linguist on an exploratory crew from earth. They land on a planet that is part of a multiple-star system, and quickly make contact with the beings on the planet. The book jumps back and forth in point of view between the beings on the planet Didet and of the Earthers.

Other than the hiccup at the end, this was an awesome read.  It was a fun, light sci-fi read that's probably going to surprise you a bit. 

To summarize, I love "Damocles." From its rich character-driven story to its dazzling imagery, Redling took me on a journey across the stars to the planet of Didet and introduced me to two extraordinary characters - an Earth woman linguist Meg and a Didet native Luol.

My rating: ★★★★★ (5 out of 5 stars)